Facebook Chat (XMPP) XEP 0080 support

Question

I have being checking out using a prototype test program the capabilities of the XMPP Facebook Chat, X-FACEBOOK. It worked great using a geoloc message XEP 0080 with Gmail servers, but when i try to send the same XML structure through the X-FACEBOOK, it trims the message and removes the GeoLoc node. I wanted to ask if someone knows if its possible to send XEP 0080 messages in X-FACEBOOK and if so what structure should I use so the Facebook Chat XMPP Server won't trim the GeoLoc info.

Sent XMPP geoloc message:

<message to="-100002578491827@chat.facebook.com" from="4yony4@chat.facebook.com/19256ca9_4C5CC12947646" type="chat" xml:lang="en">
<event xmlns="http://jabber.org/protocol/pubsub#event">
     <items node="http://jabber.org/protocol/geoloc">
          <item id="">
              <geoloc xmlns="http://jabber.org/protocol/geoloc">
                   <lat>40.488137</lat>
                   <lon>-3.397623</lon>
                   <timestamp>2012-07-27 09:09:50 GMT</timestamp>
                   <msgType>0</msgType>
              </geoloc>
          </item>
      </items>
</event>
<body> 

</body>

Received message by client:

<message xmlns="jabber:client" from="-1177157556@chat.facebook.com" to="" type="chat">
    <active xmlns="http://jabber.org/protocol/chatstates"/>
 <body></body>
</message>

Any solution or opinion will be greatly appreciated.

Well, changed the XML to resemble the one you posted, without the pub sub, and still the same problem, the message received in the recipient lacks all the namespaces under the GeoLoc node, which I think is a result of the Server not supporting that format. I can try and use the IQ subscriber option, thing is that I prefer to find a solution on which I can directly send the info to a user. If there is a possibility, even a small one in which i may be able to send information regarding GeoLoc from User A to User B in Facebook Server it may be of great help, if not well i guess i will have to accept it. Thx for the help BTW.

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 30 '12 at 17:33

When I was testing facebook XMPP connection, it did not support almost any extensions and blocked any custom tags on server. It was able to send basic presences, basic messages, vcards and that was about all it could do.

Pubsub events should be sent to services. Modern XMPP servers also support PEP extension and you can send pubsub to servers itself. In other cases, use message with target user as Robin have advised.

I do not think facebook has any server with pubsub. Also i think it still filters any unsupported namespaces. Feel free to prove me I am wrong, it is more than year since I last tested it.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 27 '12 at 16:08

These are not the same message.

The received message is simply an indicator of the users chat state, as defined in XEP-0085 and has no direct relationship to the message you sent. That doesn't mean that the first didn't potentially trigger the second, whatever library you are using may have sent the chatstate as well when you sent the message. This type of message is commonly used in chat clients to indicate that someone you are chatting with is typing a message.

The problem is probably that the message you are sending is in fact a PEP message. This is meant to be sent by the PEP service in the server, not from a client. I don't know if Facebook supports PEP or not, but I would guess that it is being filtered out due to your incorrect usage of a known namespace. PEP or Pubsub are the recommended ways of publishing geolocation information, but to utilize those you have to send an IQ packet to the service, not a message to the other client.

Try this instead (Not saying it will work, but at least the pubsub stuff is stripped):

<message to="-100002578491827@chat.facebook.com" from="4yony4@chat.facebook.com/19256ca9_4C5CC12947646" type="chat" xml:lang="en">
   <geoloc xmlns="http://jabber.org/protocol/geoloc">
      <lat>40.488137</lat>
      <lon>-3.397623</lon>
      <timestamp>2012-07-27 09:09:50 GMT</timestamp>
      <msgType>0</msgType>
   </geoloc>
   <body> 
   </body>
</message>

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 10 '13 at 21:37

I want to second Pihhan. It seems like the Facebook XMPP servers restructure messages to contain only the message body, date, and timestamp. I think they do that to keep it identical to their comment graph objects.

It is annoying, but I suspect it is deliberate. After all, their Graph is the main issue, not XMPP.

Facebook Chat (XMPP) XEP 0080 support

3 Answers3